This blog is written by a journalist based in Mumbai who writes about cities, the environment, developmental issues, the media, women and many other subjects.The title 'ulti khopdi' is a Hindi phrase referring to someone who likes to look at things from the other side.

The open discussion on menstruation is #Happy To Bleed's biggest achievement

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We usually do
not speak about it in polite company. Yet, not only was the hashtag
#HappyToBleed trending a few days ago, but the issue was a discussed
during prime time on a mainstream news channel and endorsed by anchor
Rajdeep Sardesai.

It is the M word – menstruation.

Menstruation
has become a subject of open debate largely thanks to 20-year-old
Nikita Azad. Earlier this month. Prayar Gopalakrishnan, president of the
Travancore Devaswom Board that manages the Sabrimala Ayyappa Temple in
Kerala, had justified keeping menstruating women out of the shrine. Azad
reacted by starting a counter campaign, urging young women to hold
placards or sanitary napkins reading "Happy To Bleed". She started a
Facebook event for this purpose and a related hashtag on Twitter.

The
campaign is novel because we never discuss menstruation so openly. It’s
often spoken about in private – between women, between mothers and
daughters, between sisters – but never in public.

We grow up not
saying “to menstruate” or “I’m menstruating”. Instead, girls will say
they have their “chum” (a strange term). At most, they might say
“period”. The old-fashioned will say “menses”. In Marathi, you will
indirectly say it is that time of the month.

But that time of the month is not a time for celebration. You don’t jump with joy when you start to bleed. Far from it.

Difficult experience

What
I’m about to narrate is probably a familiar story. When I began
menstruating, I was horrified. I didn’t know what was happening to my
body. I was irritated, angry and depressed on being told that this was
not a one-off, a medical condition that would be “cured”. It was a
permanent condition that would affect me every month, or rather every 28
days.

“Not fair”, I told my father, who had more patience to
discuss these matters than my mother, who thought I was an argumentative
brat. “I wish I was a boy,” I wailed. “At least then I wouldn’t have to
suffer this nonsense for the rest of my life”.

My understanding father countered: “But boys also have problems. They have to shave every single day.”

“Yes,
but they can grow a beard to avoid shaving. I have no such option,” I
said with a sense of defeat. My father had no comeback and decided to
leave the matter there.

So menstruation is not a happy occurrence
for girls. It is frustrating, inconvenient and happens far too often.
Sometimes there are cramps before it comes. Often there is pain when it
comes. And it’s messy. It hampers your movement, changes your walk, and
makes you self-conscious. Don’t tell us that the latest sanitary
napkins or tampons have altered this reality. It has only allowed us to
manage the situation better

But Nikita Azad and her supporters
are absolutely right in asserting that what happens to their bodies is
not dirty and impure. It is a fact of life. And they are not apologetic.

There
is little comfort in knowing that it is not just Hindu temples, but
other religions also place restrictions on menstruating women. Why? And
what logic justifies this sustaining tradition? This is what is being
asked today.

It’s truly bizarre that the Sabrimala priest should
suggest that a machine be invented to check whether a woman is bleeding
before she can enter a temple. A man of religious dogma is turning to
science to enforce illogical tradition: it must be a first.

Positive movement

#HappyToBleed may disappear after a few weeks, but it’s what the hashtag represents that we need to understand.

Feminists
have campaigned through the ages for the rights of women over their
bodies. This meant fighting for the right to abortion, the right to use
contraceptives, the right to healthcare that extended beyond the
reproductive organs, and the right to feel comfortable in our skins.
Feminist campaigns have been anchored in the belief that just because
men and women are biologically different, women cannot be treated as
lesser beings where the difference is used to whip them into submission
and into accepting secondary status.

What is notable about many
of the recent campaigns by young women is their ability to turn this
basic belief into one that projects their own confidence and comfort
with who and what they are. In many ways, launching a campaign like
#HappyToBleed and posting pictures of themselves holding up sanitary
napkins containing the hashtag demonstrates that today’s feminists are
as confident and creative as women in the past. They have the added
advantage of new technologies and new platforms that allow for different
forms of campaigning, which they use to their benefit.

What is
also noteworthy is that they see these campaigns not as a gimmick but as
a way to challenge what lies beneath – the P word, or Patriarchy.
Nikita Azad was at pains to explain that her campaign was not about
temple entry for women but "a protest against patriarchy and gender
discriminatory practices prevalent in our society".

Every such
campaign chips away at the structures of patriarchy that remain in place
in India. The structure is in no danger of crumbling just yet. But if
enough young women learn to question and challenge regressive attitudes,
perhaps there is hope.

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Journalist, columnist, writer based in Mumbai. Author of "Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia's largest slum" (Penguin, 2000). Worked with The Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express and Himmat Weekly.
Other books include "Whose News? The Media and Women's Issues" edited with Ammu Joseph (published by Sage 1994/2006), "Terror Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out" edited with Ammu Joesph (published by Kali for Women, 2003) and "Missing: Half the Story, Journalism as if Gender Matters" (published by Zubaan, 2010).
Regular columns in The Hindu, Sunday Magazine and on The Hoot (www.thehoot.org).